Tuesday, August 29, 2017

On our Big Trip we carried everything we needed during the 14 months of our trip on the bike. We carried everything from clothes, small rations, cooking and camping gear to some spare parts and tools to fix the bike along the way. We were self-reliant and that meant that we were free to roam wherever our bike took us.

Fixing a tire in Iran - glad to have the tools and spare tire!

As happens to all overlanders, we brought too much to begin with. It took a bit to trim the amount of stuff we brought, but we have the process pretty streamlined now. Our (little) house is packed with a quite a few items, as those of you who have visited us know. So to reduce the contents of our house to just the space on the motorcycle (our House on the trip, or 'Casa', as we call her) is a liberating experience. Let me explain, we never brought souvenirs, because they take up space. Instead we sought to enjoy every place we visited and, at most, took pictures to remind us of it. This makes that you don't have to think 'should I buy that beautiful touristy trinket', we just don't, we don't have space. It makes life very simple, all your belongings we had with us and we had nothing else to worry about (well, almost, at least).

Ok, I cheated a bit. Instead of souvenirs I shopped for parts for the bike instead. Brake pads in one place, tires in another, exhaust pipe guards from Argentina (a gift, even)! But those were... ahum... functional at least! But back to the point. The only things we really ended up missing which we couldn't bring were the art we have in our house and our bed. And halfway during the trip I treated myself to a small but good kitchen knife.

Casa found a shelter in Lithuania

Last year was the first time since the Big Trip that we traveled with all our kit on the bike again and it took some jogging of our memory to figure out what (not!) to bring. So after the 3-week trip we decided to shoot a few videos outlining what we carry on a trip.

It mainly delves into the overal details, how much capacity we had, which products we chose and what we carried and where. We shot some other videos that go more into detail of the actual contents of the bike, those I might post at another time.

One could see this video mainly for ourselves in preparation for our next trip, but I know others might be interested as well to see how we did it.